This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

Quoting an unnamed source “familiar with North Korean affairs,” the agency reported that Kim may be suffering from several health problems including diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity.

Kim’s father, grandfather and elder brother also have had gout, Yonhap said.

South Korean and Japanese media have speculated about Kim’s health since he began to rise through North Korea’s power structure, North Korean leadership analyst and 38 North contributor Michael Madden told The Star in an interview.

Here is North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, applauded by Korean People's Army (KPA) on July 28, at a performance given by the State Merited Chorus at the People's Theatre in Pyongyang.
Kim has not been seen in state media since attending a concert on Sept. 3. (KNS / AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

“I don’t think it’s a sports-related injury,” Madden added.

A recent North Korean television broadcast acknowledged Kim’s health problems but said he was “still busy leading the (North Korean) people,” China’s state-run media service, Xinhua, reported on Friday.

His office has continued to issue communications — a letter to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and another to a group of students in Pyongyang — which suggests that although Kim has not been seen publicly since Sept. 3, he is not incapacitated by illness, Madden said.

“That is a sign that he is at least awake and he can read documents and briefs,” he said.

Only part of the meeting of the Supreme People’s Assembly was shown on state TV, but Kim was not present and apparently missed the meeting for the first time since he took power after the death of his father Kim Jong Il in December 2011, according to an official for the South’s Unification Ministry who spoke on condition of anonymity because of office rules.

He was shown limping on television in July and again earlier this month.

Kim’s father, Kim Jong-il, also suffered a prolonged illness before he died of a heart attack.

For years, North Korean officials denied or refused to respond to reports that Kim Jong-il was sick, although local media did hint at the leader’s illness in a way that would have been evident to North Korean political elite, Madden said.

Kim Jong Un’s governing style is more transparent than his father’s – “That’s a relative phrase in North Korean politics,” Madden noted – which may explain why state media have been able to report more openly on the leader’s illness.

The government is also concerned about how Kim’s illness may be reported in foreign media, particularly in South Korea.

“Like any sort of public relations effort in the West and in Europe, they’re trying to get ahead of the story,” Madden said.

That transparency will still be limited in the country where domestic media is entirely controlled by the government.

“Obviously, if he’s in a wheelchair, they’re not going to show that,” Madden said.

North Korean media said that the Supreme People’s Assembly approved the promotion of an official seen as a rising confidante of Kim’s, Hwang Pyong So, as the vice-chairman of the country’s powerful National Defence Commission.

▶

The Supreme People’s Assembly rarely meets more than once a year, although this was the second such session this year. In practice it has little power, and when it is not in session, its work is done by a smaller and more powerful body called the Presidium.

During Kim Jong Il’s slow decline, North Korea’s government distributed to other government bodies some of the work that would have been done by the “notorious micromanager,” Madden said.

That system should guard against any major instability if the current Kim’s health were to worsen.

“We’ve got a system around that was designed for a sickly old fellow,” he explained.

A wider distribution of power might allow some officials to “make some moves” and quietly consolidate power in their own departments — by keeping a larger share of overseas trading profits, for example — but larger political change is unlikely, Madden said.

“If anyone is trying to foment a coup, they’re going to be stopped in their tracks. The North Koreans have a pretty big security apparatus — both in terms of guys with guns and guys who listen to phone calls and try to stop this kind of stuff from happening,” he said.

More from the Toronto Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com